Great ‘Amazon Shopping Tricks’ Hunt

Roger_Rampant

Can we always cure the problem by deleting cookies, or by using a different browser each time? Anyone have any other suggestions?

Seems it logs your IP address as well, so simply clearing cookies is not enough. In my case, each time I switch my router off and back on again it gives me a new IP address. So I can clear all my cookies, reboot my router and then go to Amazon with no cookies and a new IP address.

Some people always have the same IP address, so it wouldn't work for everyone, but it should hopefully work for me!

competitionscafe

Roger_Rampant wrote: »

Some people always have the same IP address, so it wouldn't work for everyone, but it should hopefully work for me!

You can hide your ip address by using a proxy like http://proxify.co.uk and checking the prices that way.

Doc_N

Roger_Rampant wrote: »

Seems it logs your IP address as well, so simply clearing cookies is not enough. In my case, each time I switch my router off and back on again it gives me a new IP address. So I can clear all my cookies, reboot my router and then go to Amazon with no cookies and a new IP address.

Some people always have the same IP address, so it wouldn't work for everyone, but it should hopefully work for me!

They do indeed use both the cookies and the IP address to track you and 'decide' on the prices you see when you log in. You can get round this by deleting cookies and changing your IP address - but not of course if you're signed up to Amazon Prime.

Makes you realise that there may be more to Prime than first meets the eye - as well as the £47.97 pa membership, you could also be paying an unofficial surcharge on everything you buy! You're never likely you know about it unless you take the time and trouble to log out, delete your cookies and change your IP address every time you buy something - and how many of us are going to do that?

Clever people, Amazon - but now I trust them rather less than I did before I realised that they operated differential pricing like this.

emma6190

Inevitably, there are some sites which have automated all this, and I find them easy to use. One which has appeared recently is "The Discount Sorcerer":


I accessed Amazon after looking at the prices in discountsorcerer, but found that my searches there showed up on my Amazon home page. I thought the point was to find whether there were discrepancies in the prices between Amazon and eg discountsorcerer, but obviously this is not so, so what is the point of discount sorcerer?

raeble

ettie wrote: »

Why are they still using Royal Mail for amazon prime even in the middle of a dispute? It's not as is they didn't know this was planned. I can't get a straight answer from them at all - just platitudes about parcels might go missing for a number of reasons.

They might not be. It could be the company they are using. A lot of these so called delivery companies are actually just glorified sorting companies. They take the profitable mail contract from RM, sort it and dump it back on RM at less than cost after they've taken their cut. They'll deliver to businesses and easy places in major cities but otherwise... I've had post from these other companies - marked up with their name, delivered at the same time as my RM post. Only person benefiting from this is the shareholders of these foreign delivery companies - tnt etc.

Torkijo

emma6190 wrote: »

Inevitably, there are some sites which have automated all this, and I find them easy to use. One which has appeared recently is "The Discount Sorcerer":


I accessed Amazon after looking at the prices in discountsorcerer, but found that my searches there showed up on my Amazon home page. I thought the point was to find whether there were discrepancies in the prices between Amazon and eg discountsorcerer, but obviously this is not so, so what is the point of discount sorcerer?

Its another route for Amazon to get customers - 1 shop, many doors

custardy

raeble wrote: »

They might not be. It could be the company they are using. A lot of these so called delivery companies are actually just glorified sorting companies. They take the profitable mail contract from RM, sort it and dump it back on RM at less than cost after they've taken their cut. They'll deliver to businesses and easy places in major cities but otherwise... I've had post from these other companies - marked up with their name, delivered at the same time as my RM post. Only person benefiting from this is the shareholders of these foreign delivery companies - tnt etc.

RM were never been dropped by Amazon
though you would struggle to tell by all those headlines saying Amazon have dropped RM
they said they were looking at options during the strikes,thats all
my last 4 of 5 Amazon orders were delivered by RM

moggylover

custardy wrote: »

RM were never been dropped by Amazon
though you would struggle to tell by all those headlines saying Amazon have dropped RM
they said they were looking at options during the strikes,thats all
my last 4 of 5 Amazon orders were delivered by RM

All of our ordinary "mail" is delivered by RM around here - but if you look at the postage sticker on it it will often say "TNT" or one of the other sorting companies on there because the system is as pointed out by raeble.

The private companies only deliver what is profitable: the rest is dumped on RM at negotiated cheap rates and that is how the sorting companies make their dosh. Time the British public woke up to some of these things before we do not have a RM anymore and the cost of sending anything is totally in the hands of private profiteers!

Sukatoko

I am not a major fan of amazon customer service. I have had to quote actuall law at them before they admitted they were in the wrong. Also they are not very fair to other sellers on the market place. I have heard they ban sellers for life without giving a reason. I do still use amazon because its handy (fast interface and good choice) Its true though they are almost never the cheapest even if you get 'free postage'. One grip is the major diffrences between what they sell the same product for in diffrent countries. I was just looking to buy something that is currently $34.99, £32.99 and €17 so UK is pay almost twice the price.
THANKS AMAZON! Does anyone know a tool that shows prices in diffrent amazon regions. I have heard they exist and it would be a handy tool. It could be useful to identify the cheapest country for things even if not going to buy from amazon.

Fella

The_Ejaculator wrote: »

This is very true. I actually work for a company which sells this kind software and we have used Amazon as a case study in the past. It is the same with many other websites such as Easyjet and Lastminute.com. It can work in a number of ways depending on which version is being used. The light version places a cookie and logs the IP address. The top end version does this and then actually maps your PC like a fingerprint (Operating system/browser/make/model etc) and is 99.999% effective. It is meant as a product to combat fraud but this use of logging customers interests and fixing prices is now the most common use and 100% legal. It also works with interest in products, if a specific product/flight route on a specific date is searched upon x amount of times then it will automatically raise the price. You will find this on 50%+ of e-commerce sites nowadays unfortunately.

Sneaky eh?

Are you referring to iesnare or is this a different product?

ta
Fella